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Keywords:credit cards 

Working Paper
Does getting a mortgage affect credit card use?

Buying a house changes a household?s balance sheet by simultaneously reducing liquidity and introducing mortgage payments, which may leave the household more exposed to other shocks. We find that this change affects credit card use in two ways: A debt effect increases credit card spending, while a credit effect leads to higher credit limits. In the short run, a new mortgage acquisition has a robust and statistically significant positive effect on credit card utilization ? the fraction of a consumer?s credit card limit that is used ? of approximately 11 percentage points. Before the 2008 ...
Working Papers , Paper 19-8

Report
The 2017 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice

This paper describes key results from the 2017 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice (DCPC), the fourth in a series of diary surveys that measure payment behavior through the daily recording of U.S. consumers' spending. The DCPC is the only diary survey of U.S. consumer payments available free to the public. In October 2017, consumers paid mostly with cash (30.3 percent of payments), debit cards (26.2 percent), and credit cards (21.0 percent). These instruments accounted for three-quarters of the number of payments, but only about 40 percent of the total value of payments, because they tend to be ...
Consumer Payments Research Data Reports , Paper 2018-5

Discussion Paper
Balances Are on the Rise—So Who Is Taking on More Credit Card Debt?

Total household debt balances continued their upward climb in the third quarter of 2022 with an increase of $351 billion, the largest nominal quarterly increase since 2007. This rise was driven by a $282 billion increase in mortgage balances, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt & Credit from the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data. Mortgages, historically the largest form of household debt, now comprise 71 percent of outstanding household debt balances, up from 69 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019. An increase in credit card balances was also a boost to ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20221115b

Discussion Paper
The Role of Educational Attainment in Household Debt and Delinquency Disparities

This post concludes a three-part series exploring the gender, racial, and educational disparities of debt outcomes of college students. In the previous two posts, we examined how debt holding and delinquency behaviors vary among students of different race and gender, breaking up our analyses by level of degree pursued by the student. We found that Black and Hispanic students were less likely than white students to take on credit card debt, auto loans, and mortgage debt, but experienced higher rates of delinquency in each of these debt areas by the age of 30. In contrast, Black students were ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20211117c

Discussion Paper
Credit Card Balance Declines Are Largest Among Older, Wealthier Borrowers

Total household debt rose by $85 billion in the first quarter of 2021, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit from the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data. Since the start of the pandemic, household debt balances have increased in every quarter but one—the second quarter of 2020, when lockdowns were in full effect. The Quarterly Report and this analysis are based on the New York Fed's Consumer Credit Panel, which is drawn from anonymized Equifax credit data.
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20210512

Working Paper
Managing Risk in Cards Portfolios: Risk Appetite and Limits

We describe an important risk management tool at financial institutions, risk appetite frameworks. We observe those frameworks for credit cards portfolios at four large banks and analyze when and why banks adjust them. The risk appetite frameworks for these banks monitor 40 to 150 metrics. We focus on metrics related to outstanding balances of which we identified 79. Overall, we find that these frameworks are sticky. Most adjustments occur during scheduled annual reviews and are relatively limited. Limit breaches are rare. Thresholds are often changed the month after a breach or after the ...
Supervisory Research and Analysis Working Papers , Paper 24-01

Which U.S. Households Have Credit Card Debt?

Households carrying credit card balances tend to be middle income, but the ratio of credit card debt to income is highest among those who earn the least.
On the Economy

Report
The Financial Consequences of Undiagnosed Memory Disorders

We examine the effect of undiagnosed memory disorders on credit outcomes using nationally representative credit reporting data merged with Medicare data. Years prior to eventual diagnosis, average credit scores begin to weaken and payment delinquency begins to increase, overall and for mortgage and credit card accounts specifically. Credit outcomes consistently deteriorate over the quarters leading up to diagnosis. The harmful financial effects of undiagnosed memory disorders exacerbate the already substantial financial pressure households face upon diagnosis of a memory disorder. Our ...
Staff Reports , Paper 1106

Discussion Paper
Contactless Payment Cards: Trends and Barriers to Consumer Adoption in the U.S.

Since 2017, the payment cards industry has undertaken a concerted effort to bring contactless “tap-and-pay” credit and debit card products to consumers. Payment networks, card issuers, and banks have worked to ensure that contactless cards, which communicate payment information wirelessly to point-of-sale terminals through Near Field Communication technology, are at the forefront of consumers’ minds when they make a purchase. Missing from the discussion of contactless payments, however, is an understanding of consumer interest in the technology; indeed, the current activities are a ...
Consumer Finance Institute discussion papers , Paper DP 20-03

Working Paper
The Conundrum of Zero APR: An Analytical Framework

We document the prevalence of promotional pricing of credit card debt in the U.S. and develop an analytic framework to study how interest rates on multiperiod credit line contracts should be set when debt is unsecured and defaultable. We show that according to the basic theory of unsecured credit — suitably extended to allow for promotions — interest rates should price in the expected default risk on a period-by-period basis. The inspection of our model’s mechanism implies that time-consistent consumption behavior is crucial for this result; accordingly, modeling time-inconsistent ...
Working Papers , Paper 23-06

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